Bringing a Disability Lens to Criminal Legal Reform in Baltimore

“You neglect yourself when you don’t have that one secure place,” said an individual describing the experience of avoiding taking medications while living in a homeless shelter.  “If I have medications that maybe I don’t want folks to see, that may look like me not going to pick those up from the pharmacy at all.”

Insights like this were among the comments gathered by the People’s Commission to Decriminalize Maryland during listening sessions that created space for people with lived experience to share about the connections between their identities — including disability — and criminalization. The Commission held these sessions in 2019 as part of their efforts to reduce the disparate impact of the justice system and historically marginalized youth and adults, supported by seed funding from Open Society Institute (OSI)-Baltimore. 

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Source: Disability and Philanthropy Forum